DURING the disastrous first month of Guildford’s Recycling Works scheme, the borough council received an average of 245 reports every working day about missed collections.

In November last year the council’s cleansing team logged a total of 14,705 calls or e-mails regarding recycling and rubbish across the borough.

The details have been released under the Freedom of Information Act, after some residents were left fuming by delayed caddy and wheelie bin deliveries amid reports of rubbish collections being missed for up to five weeks.

Reasons given by the council included crews having to learn "new rounds".

Other factors blamed for the initial weeks of confusion included neighbours putting out materials late or not at all, and recycling boxes contaminated with non-recyclable items.

Internal e-mails regarding the scheme have revealed the problems the council encountered after the scheme began.

In the first of two letters to councillors, dated November 6, head of operational services James Whiteman described the main reasons for missed collections as refuse trucks having experienced minor problems and people being unsure about their collection days due to misplaced calendars.

In the second letter, dated November 13, Mr Whiteman highlighted that crews had failed to finish refuse collections in Peaslake on one occasion but cleared the outstanding waste the following morning.

“There have again been some missed collections and we have a crew working on those again tomorrow," he said.

In his final paragraph to councillors, the operations manager concluded: “It is obviously frustrating that there have been some difficulties but I do think, generally, that operationally the scheme has started well.

"Morale is high in the teams, staff are working very long hours and there is a great determination to succeed.”

The manager added that the focus from that point on was to develop local knowledge on the new rounds.

Vivienne Ashbolt from Littleton, just outside Guildford, waited for her food caddy for more than four weeks.

She said: “The hiccups involved in getting the food caddies to everybody were just horrendous.”

Mrs Ashbolt was surprised to hear that the council was so positive about the scheme by its second week.

“I don’t think they are in touch with reality, I think when they looked at it, for them it was working.

"In reality, we shouldn’t have had to ring the council to get our bins, they should have been sufficiently organised enough for it to roll out without all these hiccups, I think they just jumped the gun.”

Now the service has settled in recent weeks, Mrs Ashbolt said she was happy with the recycling and refuse system, although surprised at having to pay for replacement bin liners for the food caddies.